57% of San Angelo Region's Hospital Beds are Empty

SAN ANGELO, TX — The test count slowly rose to 1057 Saturday and San Angelo did not add another case of COVID-19 to the City County Health Department count. Meanwhile, hospitals in the region report that 57 percent of hospital beds in all hospitals in the region are empty.

Of the 1057 tests administered since the COVID-19 pandemic response started on March 17, 977 of those tests have been negative and 41 positive. One person has died. The fatality was a man in his 70s who suffered additional health problems, the health department has said.

The health department said 19 of the 41 reported cases are under active monitoring. None of those recovering from the virus infection are hospitalized, Dr. James Vreitis, the county’s Local Health Authority, said in an interview yesterday.

The health department also began listing the counties from where those receiving testing in San Angelo are from. The City of San Angelo reported that only one case of COVID-19 was from Concho County and the other 40 were residents of Tom Green County.

Eight tests were administered to patients who lived outside the state of Texas since testing reporting began, the City reported. None were reported as positive.

The City’s reporting of from what county those receiving COVID-19 tests reside is an act of transparency after Robert Lee Mayor Allyson Crenshaw in Coke County expressed concern the Tom Green County and City of San Angelo Health Department was suppressing reports of positive cases in rural communities like hers.

”I’m not asking for the patient's name, I just want to know a number of people from my County/City," said Crenshaw.

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Above: COVID-19 tests by county and region that were reported by Tom Green County health authorities.

San Angelo’s two hospitals, Shannon Medical Center and San Angelo Community Medical Center, sit at the center of the Texas Department Health and Human Services' Trauma Service Area K. The population of the region, that stretches from Crockett County to the west to Mason and Coleman Counties to the east, and between Coke County to the north and Sutton County to the south, is 168,836, according to the Texas Department of Health and Human Services.

San Angelo’s Trauma Service Region has a capacity of 523 hospital beds. Currently, 297 of those beds are available. That means that 57 percent of all hospital beds in the region are empty. TDHHS reported today that 22 ICU beds and 42 ventilators are available. There are no lab-conformed COVID-19 patients in any hospital in the region.